[OPE-L:5167] was Marx an economist?

["Gerald_A_Levy" <Gerald_A_Levy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Steve (K):

 

Sometimes when you refer to Marx being an

economist I think you are joking, sometimes I

think you are serious or only half-joking.

 

I don't know if you _fully_ appreciate that Marx

was a revolutionary, a communist. He was not

an economist. Indeed, he would have viewed

such a designation as an insult.

 

Writing _Capital_ was not only an intellectual

task -- it was a political act that he viewed as

essential. Indeed, it is worthwhile noting that

in 1865 he resigned from a sub-committee of

the [First] International so that he would have

more time to write _Capital_ (see 7/31/65

latter to Engels).

 

Here was a person who was banished from

many European countries and had spent his

time in jail. For his beliefs, he spent his lifetime

in abject poverty and had to rely to a great extent

on the financial generosity of Engels (which

certainly must have been hard for a very proud

man). This also meant that his wife and children

lived in poverty. Ultimately his lifestyle -- caused

by his unending and lifelong dedication as a

revolutionary and a spokesperson for the working-

class movement -- led to his death ... while still

basically a young man.

 

To lose sight of his political beliefs is to thus lose

sight of the man. Everything that he did in his

adult life was an _expression_ of his political

convictions.

 

To get closer to your critique, I want you to

think some more about the above and recall

that Marx considered his theory of surplus-value

to be one of his two greatest "discoveries" in

political economy. From that perspective, his

position that wage-labor is the sole source of

value and surplus-value is  more than a

theoretical position -- it is an _expression_ of his

politics. It is his explanation for the exploitation

of the working-class and it has truly revolutionary

implications about what is required to end that

exploitation. It is not just another part of his

theory -- it is a cornerstone.

 

I wonder if you can imagine the disdain with which

Marx would view the proposition that means of

production create new value? One does not have

to read a whole lot of the _Theories of Surplus

Value_ to get an answer. On the one hand, he

viewed such perspectives as fetishistic to the

extent that it attributes to things (means of

production) an ability that only labor (and a

particular social form of labor at that) can do.

It turns the world upside down where the illusion

appears that the commodities produced by labor

are themselves creative of value (thus it is an

example of commodity fetishism). Moreover, it

has pernicious political implications to the extent

that it leads towards the bourgeois conception

that land, labor, *and capital* create value. Marx

treated such theories, you will recall, with great

scorn.

 

The above is not intended as a critique of your

perspective. Rather, it is intended to focus

attention on how your perspective of the

implications of Marx's theory is so completely

are at variance not only with Marx's intent

in writing _Capital_ but his entire adult life.

 

Marx was not an economist -- never forget that

fact.

 

And, by the way, the revolution will come! And, 

I hope that the members of this list will live long

enough to see that day. Indeed, I hope to stand

shoulder-to-shoulder with many of them some day

at the barricades. And then, in the words of the

poet J. Bruce Glasier, "We'll turn things upside

down".

 

Venceremos!

 

In solidarity, Jerry